Creative Indoor Plant Containers and Ideas

Design and Installationgarden TriviaIndoor plants
Written By Peter Morris

The Tonka truck from E bay, filled with succulents !

So you have decided to add to the beauty of your indoor space with a beautiful indoor plant.  It will need a container ! And why settle for the same old...

Here are many samples of what you can use and a bit of how to assemble them from our Indoor Team !

Criteria

It needs drainage or it will rot if sitting in standing water.  The surface it will sit on needs protection.  You want to make sure that water does not run all over the place and make a mess of your apartment or whatever piece of furniture it is sitting on !

Option 1

  1. Put your plants in an inside grow pot (plastic) with holes. 

  2. Seal the inside of the decorative planter with silicone waterproof sealer

  3. Allow to dry overnight

  4. Test that ! you need to be sure the decorative container is sealed and wont leak !

  5. Place the grow pot and plant into the decorative container allowing enough space so the inside pot will drain into the decorative container. 

  6. When you water you need to be careful it does not overflow.  Sometimes hard to do since you cant see the excess water inside. Assuming it is small enough you can take it to the sink and carefully tilt it to drain any excess water.

Option 2

  1. You plant it directly.

  2. Let it drain in the sink when you water ! 

  3. This also works well for planters placed outdoors 

Sources

Scour flea markets, Etsy, E bay, garage sales, stoop giveaways, or even the odd dumpster dive.  Think outside the box.  Anything you consider cool that has room to hold plants in it is game.

You can get worthy containers for your plants to live in and great stories as to how you came to acquire them !

Kid Robot "Munny" Robots with their heads lopped off, sealed inside with silicone and planted

Grinches planted in glass squares made from colored wire and mini cypress

Outdoor Tonka truck with mini cypress wrapped in burlap

Birch logs cut and hollowed out with succulents

Lady slipper orchid in Ostrich egg

Currently we are considering the following

  1. plastic dinosaurs

  2. Wooden salad bowls

  3. Ice Buckets ( perfect as they come with a liner - no silicone )

  4. old bricks with a great Patina

  5. Old tin cookie or tea containers

Have fun with it and if you come up with something really unique make sure you fill us in as we love new ideas at Plant Specialists !

GREENING NEW YORK FOR OVER 53 YEARS !

Article written by our Staff Horticulturist, Peter B Morris, BSc, MSc, MBA

All photographs used with permission from our own customers gardens !

Peter Morris

Peter was born and raised on a beautiful green island in the midst of a tropical rainforest. He was introduced into the world of plants at the age of six when his grandmother, an avid Spanish gardener herself, asked him to help her grow seeds for her pepper garden. He was hooked! By the time he was a teen, he had his own rose and orchid collection numbering in the hundreds. Botany was in his blood, and that is what he set out to study.

His passion brought him to NY in the late seventies to further his education. His tenacity allowed him to work full time at Plant Specialists while he completed a MS in Plant Biology. As a manager at the time he felt unsatisfied with his knowledge of business and business processes. Peter felt compelled to learn, so he then pursued and completed an MBA in Quality Management within a few short years.

Peter’s other passion is teaching. His natural ability is quickly consumed by our staff in all subjects in Botany, Horticulture, and Landscaping. He created an immense reference library of more than 3,500 plants providing an invaluable resource for our staff.

Peter’s breadth of knowledge and wisdom allows him to effectively diagnose the needs of plants. Sometimes just by walking into a garden he can create a prescription that fixes even the hardest issue. He is our Staff Botanist, Diagnostician, and all around Mentor. Recently, he has put his immense knowledge and skills into developing a new department that focuses on Plant Healthcare. As he puts it, “Magic through Science”. The PHC staff that surround him have avidly consumed his teachings. Substantially developing their own plant wisdom, many have taken on difficult plant health issues with spectacular results.

Plant Healthcare has been an instant success with customers! The proper treatment of insects and diseases including Organic methods has made pest control a necessity for every plant. Correcting hormonal imbalances caused by planting in containers or refurbishing soils leached of nutrients by irrigation systems are big challenges PHC has become quite comfortable addressing. The scientific approach to the complex demands of keeping plants healthy in our harsh city environment has made many a customer say WOW!

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